Selwyn Duke
San Bernardino shooting: political correctness kills
By Selwyn Duke
There was a tragic incident of climate change Wednesday, or so Barack Obama might say. As I was driving home that evening listening to the still sparse details on the San Bernardino shooting, the news report informed that there were two dead suspects, a man and woman. So I already knew more than the authorities were telling: I figured the two assailants were non-white, almost certainly Muslim. After all, if the police knew their sexes, they knew what they looked like. And if they'd been white, it would have been announced right away.
You see, I know the drill. When the suspects are non-white, politically correct authorities will never mention it for fear of condemnation. "Why are you calling attention to their race or ethnicity?!" they'll be asked. Of course, they didn't mind calling attention to their sex. In the leftist upside-down world, all characteristics are equal, but some are more equal than others. Really, the more consistently PC way of describing the terrorists would have been as "two sentient bipeds." Because, you know, four legs good, two legs bad.
Then there's the following, from CBS Los Angeles:
It's not that liberals don't engage in profiling; it's just that they do it all wrong. MSNBC wasted no time profiling the terrorists as possible pro-lifers, pointing out that a Planned Butcherhood facility was "just a few blocks away." And recently, liberal senator Sherrod Brown averred that white males were a bigger threat to America than Muslim jihadists (this may be true about white males such as Sherrod Brown).
Downtown Brown was, of course, talking about mass shootings such as Columbine and Sandy Hook. He completely ignored that such incidents aren't classified as terrorism for the simple reason that they're not terrorism; they're not generally perpetrated in the name of a cause but are the work of deranged minds. But no matter. The whole point is based on a lie to begin with.
As I reported last year using statistical analysis, it is a myth that an inordinate percentage of mass shooters are white.
In reality, mass shooters' racial and ethnic backgrounds (insofar as major groups go) reflect the demographics of the overall U.S. population almost perfectly; the only exception is Asians, who, interestingly, are somewhat overrepresented. But, hey, the media have their narrative. And they're stickin' to it.
"Narrative," you may note, was once used mainly in reference to fiction. I suppose it still is. And perhaps that's a better name for our Teleprompter-reading "reporters": narrators.
This brings us to the other Teleprompter reader, our Narrator in Chief. Obama called for gun control soon after news of the SB shooting broke, when what's really needed is immigration control. But then Mr. Hussein couldn't import any more refujihadis (hat tip: an American Thinker reader), who we know for a fact are coming in with the Mideastern Muslim migrants because the latter cannot be vetted. But, you know, eggs and omelets.
Obama never feels constrained by facts, but he probably assumed that, whoever the SB assailants were and whatever their motives, the guns just had a mind of their own. Perhaps he ought to recruit Little Lord Fauntleroy's recessive-gene twin, Piers Morgan, to tell us how much lower gun-control poster boy Britain's murder rate is than ours. Except that New Hampshire – with a higher gun-ownership rate than the U.K. – has a lower homicide rate. This is despite it, frighteningly, being just chock full of those dreaded white males (N.H. is 91.3 percent non-Hispanic white, versus 62.1 percent for the U.S. overall). And Dr. Thomas Sowell tells us there just might be a connection there.
Returning to profiling, there are other connections we could make. I am a member of one of the most profiled group in the nation: males. Police view males far more suspiciously than females because males commit an inordinate amount of crime. But if this is just, is it not also just to apply the exact same standard to all other groups that commit an inordinate amount of crime? And if so-called "racial profiling" is "racist" and is verboten, isn't sex profiling sexist? Shouldn't it be eliminated with the same vigor?
Oh, yeah, four legs good, two legs bad.
Profiling is simply a method by which we can make determinations based on scant information in situations in which obtaining more information is not feasible. In the realm of policing and personal safety, it enables us to determine the probability that a given individual has committed a crime or has criminal intent. And we all engage in profiling, mind you, such as when avoiding a group of rough-hewn young men walking down the street or being distrustful of a sleazy-looking used-car salesman. Doctors do it when assessing what conditions and diseases a patient is likely to have (Pima Indians have the nation's highest diabetes rate; blacks have high rates of prostate cancer). Children do it when being wary of petting strange dogs.
And then childishly destructive people tell us we should do it in every way – but one.
We can profile people based on sex, age, the car they drive, dress and even race. For instance, police may stop a white man driving through a bad inner-city neighborhood in an expensive car, figuring the probability is relatively high that he's there to buy drugs. But this willingness to "racially profile" goes out the window when the matter is politically favored groups. That, my friends, is unjust discrimination. That is prejudice.
And it's dangerous.
This aversion to politically incorrect "racial profiling" is even more ridiculous when the matter is Muslims. Note, low-info narrators, "Muslim" is not a race. It refers to a group defined by a set of beliefs, or doctrines. And since actions originate with thoughts, what you believe matters and is the best predictor of behavior. If you want to find a good prospective soldier or UFC cage fighter, for instance, you don't look among the Amish.
Referring to the SB terrorism and pushing gun control, the NY Daily News' Thursday cover reads, "GOD ISN'T FIXING THIS." No, He's not. For He gives us free will, and you liberals are using yours wrongly and destructively. And you won't fix it, either, because you're spiritually diseased.
It will only be fixed by a sea-change in American culture, an about-face where political correctness becomes so stigmatized that exhibiting it means character and career destruction in the same way that being politically incorrect does today.
Political correctness kills. And for America to survive, it must die.
© Selwyn Duke
December 4, 2015
There was a tragic incident of climate change Wednesday, or so Barack Obama might say. As I was driving home that evening listening to the still sparse details on the San Bernardino shooting, the news report informed that there were two dead suspects, a man and woman. So I already knew more than the authorities were telling: I figured the two assailants were non-white, almost certainly Muslim. After all, if the police knew their sexes, they knew what they looked like. And if they'd been white, it would have been announced right away.
You see, I know the drill. When the suspects are non-white, politically correct authorities will never mention it for fear of condemnation. "Why are you calling attention to their race or ethnicity?!" they'll be asked. Of course, they didn't mind calling attention to their sex. In the leftist upside-down world, all characteristics are equal, but some are more equal than others. Really, the more consistently PC way of describing the terrorists would have been as "two sentient bipeds." Because, you know, four legs good, two legs bad.
Then there's the following, from CBS Los Angeles:
-
A man who has been working in the [Redlands] area [of terrorist Syed Farook's home] said he noticed a half-dozen Middle Eastern men in the area in recent weeks, but decided not to report anything since he did not wish to racially profile those people.
"We sat around lunch thinking, 'What were they doing around the neighborhood?'" he said. "We'd see them leave where they're raiding the apartment."
It's not that liberals don't engage in profiling; it's just that they do it all wrong. MSNBC wasted no time profiling the terrorists as possible pro-lifers, pointing out that a Planned Butcherhood facility was "just a few blocks away." And recently, liberal senator Sherrod Brown averred that white males were a bigger threat to America than Muslim jihadists (this may be true about white males such as Sherrod Brown).
Downtown Brown was, of course, talking about mass shootings such as Columbine and Sandy Hook. He completely ignored that such incidents aren't classified as terrorism for the simple reason that they're not terrorism; they're not generally perpetrated in the name of a cause but are the work of deranged minds. But no matter. The whole point is based on a lie to begin with.
As I reported last year using statistical analysis, it is a myth that an inordinate percentage of mass shooters are white.
In reality, mass shooters' racial and ethnic backgrounds (insofar as major groups go) reflect the demographics of the overall U.S. population almost perfectly; the only exception is Asians, who, interestingly, are somewhat overrepresented. But, hey, the media have their narrative. And they're stickin' to it.
"Narrative," you may note, was once used mainly in reference to fiction. I suppose it still is. And perhaps that's a better name for our Teleprompter-reading "reporters": narrators.
This brings us to the other Teleprompter reader, our Narrator in Chief. Obama called for gun control soon after news of the SB shooting broke, when what's really needed is immigration control. But then Mr. Hussein couldn't import any more refujihadis (hat tip: an American Thinker reader), who we know for a fact are coming in with the Mideastern Muslim migrants because the latter cannot be vetted. But, you know, eggs and omelets.
Obama never feels constrained by facts, but he probably assumed that, whoever the SB assailants were and whatever their motives, the guns just had a mind of their own. Perhaps he ought to recruit Little Lord Fauntleroy's recessive-gene twin, Piers Morgan, to tell us how much lower gun-control poster boy Britain's murder rate is than ours. Except that New Hampshire – with a higher gun-ownership rate than the U.K. – has a lower homicide rate. This is despite it, frighteningly, being just chock full of those dreaded white males (N.H. is 91.3 percent non-Hispanic white, versus 62.1 percent for the U.S. overall). And Dr. Thomas Sowell tells us there just might be a connection there.
Returning to profiling, there are other connections we could make. I am a member of one of the most profiled group in the nation: males. Police view males far more suspiciously than females because males commit an inordinate amount of crime. But if this is just, is it not also just to apply the exact same standard to all other groups that commit an inordinate amount of crime? And if so-called "racial profiling" is "racist" and is verboten, isn't sex profiling sexist? Shouldn't it be eliminated with the same vigor?
Oh, yeah, four legs good, two legs bad.
Profiling is simply a method by which we can make determinations based on scant information in situations in which obtaining more information is not feasible. In the realm of policing and personal safety, it enables us to determine the probability that a given individual has committed a crime or has criminal intent. And we all engage in profiling, mind you, such as when avoiding a group of rough-hewn young men walking down the street or being distrustful of a sleazy-looking used-car salesman. Doctors do it when assessing what conditions and diseases a patient is likely to have (Pima Indians have the nation's highest diabetes rate; blacks have high rates of prostate cancer). Children do it when being wary of petting strange dogs.
And then childishly destructive people tell us we should do it in every way – but one.
We can profile people based on sex, age, the car they drive, dress and even race. For instance, police may stop a white man driving through a bad inner-city neighborhood in an expensive car, figuring the probability is relatively high that he's there to buy drugs. But this willingness to "racially profile" goes out the window when the matter is politically favored groups. That, my friends, is unjust discrimination. That is prejudice.
And it's dangerous.
This aversion to politically incorrect "racial profiling" is even more ridiculous when the matter is Muslims. Note, low-info narrators, "Muslim" is not a race. It refers to a group defined by a set of beliefs, or doctrines. And since actions originate with thoughts, what you believe matters and is the best predictor of behavior. If you want to find a good prospective soldier or UFC cage fighter, for instance, you don't look among the Amish.
Referring to the SB terrorism and pushing gun control, the NY Daily News' Thursday cover reads, "GOD ISN'T FIXING THIS." No, He's not. For He gives us free will, and you liberals are using yours wrongly and destructively. And you won't fix it, either, because you're spiritually diseased.
It will only be fixed by a sea-change in American culture, an about-face where political correctness becomes so stigmatized that exhibiting it means character and career destruction in the same way that being politically incorrect does today.
Political correctness kills. And for America to survive, it must die.
© Selwyn Duke
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
